Acts 5:32

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jun 14 12:04:37 EDT 2002


At 10:40 AM -0500 6/14/02, Frazier Conley wrote:
>Acts 5:32 KAI hHMEIS ESMEN MARTURES TWN hRHMATWN TOUTWN KAI TO PNEUMA TO
>hAGION EDWKEN hO QEOS TOIS PEIQARCOUSIN AUTWi.
>
>Is it not the case that EDWKEN (obey) is a present participle which should
>be rendered as an action simultaneous with the principal verb, gave
>(PEIQARCOUSIN), which is in the aorist. Would not this be best rendered as
>in the Simple English Bible translation, "God has given the Spirit to those
>who obeyed him")?

I think you have it backwards. Theres more than one fundamental
misunderstanding of the Greek text here--although it may be that you've
simply reversed the words you are describing in the text in question:

(a) EDWKEN is the aorist 3 sg. indic. act. from DIDWMI and here means "gave";
(b) PEIQARCOUSIN is dat. pl. PRESENT. act. ptc of PEIQARCW and here means
"to those who obey/are obedient"--in this instance the present participle
doesn't indicate anything about when the obedience is given, but it does
seem to suggest that the ones thus described continue in obedience rather
than simply were in obedience at the time when the spirit was given them.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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